Chapter 1

It was just getting light when Julian came in from the balcony.

He showed no sign of having stayed up all night, as if he hadn't been the one who had spent the entire night talking to Zoe Whitmore.

I sat at the dining table, slowly slipping my grandmother's papers into a document envelope. A few changes of clothes lay beside them.

Julian glanced at it. He didn't ask when I had packed. He only took a black card out of his inside jacket pocket. "Use this to cover your grandmother's funeral expenses. The limit is more than enough."

The card slid across to me. My fingers stopped. I looked up at him. "Who were you talking to until dawn last night?"

Something in his face went stiff for a second. It took him a moment to pull out a chair and sit down. His voice was flat. "Just some work problems. Get the funeral arrangements done first, and don't worry about anything else."

The housekeeper brought over a bowl of oatmeal just then, with no raisins and at just the right temperature.

Julian took the bowl and set it by my hand. "You have a sensitive stomach. You'll feel sick if you go too long without eating. Eat something first."

I looked at the oatmeal and my throat tightened.

He remembered that I hated raisins. He remembered my stomach ulcer. He remembered that my hands and feet went cold after a late night. What he couldn't remember was that holding me when I needed him most wouldn't have made him miss his morning meeting.

"You're still pitching the sustainable park project next week." He checked his watch. "Take these three days to get yourself back on track."

I raised my head slowly and looked at him. "And if I can't?"

"Then let your assistant present for you." He paused. "I've arranged a car to take you back. Be safe on the road."

I had meant to ask whether he could come with me, even if only until the funeral was over.

To my grandmother, he was family. He should have been there.

But he was already on his feet, taking a call from his assistant. "Zoe won't take a client's call? Where is she now? I'm on my way."

He picked up his car keys and looked back at me as he turned. "Keep the card. And stop being difficult."

"What happened to her?" I asked evenly.

He was busy putting on his shoes and answered without looking up, "A breakup. She isn't stable right now."

"So you're canceling a board meeting for her?"

Julian stopped where he stood. He turned back to me, his brows drawing together. "Iris, she isn't like you."

For a second, the sound of my name in his mouth fooled me.

Years ago, when I had just started graduate school and my grandmother was in the hospital, he had held my hand in the corridor and told me that no matter what happened, I would never have to face it alone.

Back then, he'd said, "Iris, being strong isn't about carrying everything by yourself. It's about knowing you have someone to turn to when you're tired."

Now he had rewritten that sentence into something else.

As if looking steady enough had cost me the right to be taken care of.

"How is she different?"

"She isn't as steady as you." He said it as though it were obvious. "You know how to handle your own feelings."

Then he left.

In the end I didn't take the card. I pushed it away along with the oatmeal, opened my laptop, and logged in to the onboarding page the institute had sent me.

Six months earlier, my old advisor had asked whether I wanted to apply again for a position on one of the institute's projects. I had never given him an answer.

Three days ago the formal offer had landed in my inbox, asking me to confirm by today whether I would accept.

I had given that job up to help Julian keep his landscape firm alive. Now the institute was willing to hold the spot open and wanted to know whether I would take it.

I stared at the confirm button for a long time, then pressed it.

A line came up on the screen. Start date: three days from now.

I closed the laptop, put the card in an envelope, wrote Return on it, and went back to sorting my grandmother's papers.

This time I wasn't going to wait for Julian to come home.